Friday, October 31, 2014

Here's how you went racing on a budget back in the day. The motorcycle is a Panther, the cycle I couldn't say, fairly easy to recognise those Mafac brakes though.

Strange how we indulge in a hobby that should have impeccable environmentally friendly credentials but often put our cycles in the car to transport them to somewhere we want to ride. The rise of mountain bike parks has made this even more commonplace with folks driving perhaps for more than an hour just in order to have a cycle ride.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

The regular fleabay trawl has turned up a nice period set of GB brakes for the Sun Manxman project. The calipers are 'Sport' and the levers are 'Arret' models. The set is ideal for the Manxman, correct period, quality, functional and long reach. A curiosity about the levers is that instead of the usual small circular GB logo they have an image of a Lincoln Imp. I wonder if these levers were originally from an Elswick Lincoln Imp? The logo is identical, if anyone out there knows please comment.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Since the pioneer years of cycling the pursuit has inspired bawdy comedy. Here's a postcard from the immediate post WW2 years. This one hasn't particularly stood the test of time though one questions if it was ever laugh out loud funny. Whatever the case it's an intersting little snippet of social history.

Friday, October 10, 2014

A small selection of photos taken from a Scottish cycling club album. The pictures are all taken in Perth and Kinross area. Some truly tough riding. Cycling was for hard men back in those days! I've captioned the images with the annotation written on the back of each photo.